The Legend Behind the Scenes
Lagoon Park in Utah is rich in history—what began as a dancing pavilion in the late 1800s drew performers like Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie during the 1930s and 1940s. But a disastrous fire in 1953 changed the face of the park forever, prompting the park’s owners to embark on a quest to rebuild it into something new, into what it has become today—a family park with rides and games that has preserved its history and maintains its identity.

Peter Freed has championed that cause.

Those who enter the historic buildings of Lagoon’s Pioneer Village to walk the beautiful gardens or enjoy the park’s live entertainment are experiencing Peter Freed’s vision. Outside the 100-acre region of Lagoon Park where Freed has spent the past 30 years as president, he is not very well-known, even within the amusement industry that he has spent 46 years of his life serving. In spite of his impact on the industry, Freed has not achieved legendary fame, and that’s just the way he likes it.

When people think of Lagoon, Freed wants them to remember his late brother Robert Freed, an IAAPA Hall of Fame inductee and legend in every sense of the word. He wants them to think of former IAAPA chairman and longtime Lagoon executive Boyd Jensen. He says he’d like people to think of current IAAPA president and former Lagoon general manager Clark Robinson, or his oldest son and current Lagoon president Dave Freed. Most important, he wants the world to know Lagoon’s people, from the 15-year-old ticket takers to the dedicated veterans of the maintenance department.

“He’s the first one to acknowledge that we can’t [run Lagoon] without the best employees in the world,” says his son Dave.

Boyd Jensen describes Freed as a behind-the-scenes leader. “He doesn’t want to lead the parade,” Jensen says. “He uses his position to build. He’s built a lot of people, hundreds of people in the industry.”

Freed’s daughter Kristen Freed O’Bagy, Lagoon’s vice president, has spent 25 years working with her father at the park and says he likes to give everyone else the credit and stay out of the limelight. “Ego is not in his vocabulary,” she says.

Robinson puts it another way. “You’ll never have a boss like Freed in your whole life. He empowers people. He lets people learn from their mistakes and grow from experiences.”

All you have to do is listen to Dave assessing his own leadership abilities through the eyes of his father to understand the kind of impact Freed has had on the people around him. “I’m afraid I haven’t learned from him as well as I could,” Dave says. “People may not believe me, but I honestly want to be more like him. He is my hero.”

The Blue Lagoon
Freed was born on January 8, 1921, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and from an early age he was greatly influenced by his older brothers Dave, Dan, and especially Bob, who was his best friend. “We were only 19 months apart. People thought we were twins. Being the younger one, the baby brother, I would more or less follow what he was doing,” Freed recalls.

After marrying Christie Wicker in 1944 and serving in the United States Navy, it was Bob and his brothers who led Freed to a small amusement park located halfway between Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah, along the old Bamberger Railway. “It was right after the war, and my brothers and I were on the lookout for something to do. So, we bought Lagoon,” he says.

While Lagoon was founded in 1886 on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, it was not a successful venture when they took it over in 1946. “It looked like a ghost town,” Freed says. Lagoon had been closed during WWII, so it required a great deal of effort to bring the local schools and companies back to the park.

In those early days, Freed wore many hats at Lagoon. “I would leave that office at 5 p.m. and cook hot dogs, help out at swim, count money, and whatever else. I even helped paint,” Freed says. While Freed helped count every dime, there wasn’t a lot to go around—“we grossed about $1,900 a day.”

Freed also managed to go back to the University of Utah while working full-time. “It was bugging me that I didn’t get my degree,” he says. He had been back in school just a few months when his brothers negotiated the purchase of Lagoon. “My brothers were furious with me for going to college, but I told them I would have time to do it.” In the end, it only took Freed 15 months to complete his degree in business, but he says he never missed a beat at Lagoon.

As the park began to experience success, Freed’s brother Bob managed the park while he worked at the brothers’ finance company. And then in one night, their luck changed.

A fire swept through Lagoon Park that was so intense that the flames were visible 20 miles away in Salt Lake City. The fire moved down the west side of the Midway destroying everything in its path. The front of the coaster was gone; the Fun House, and the Dancing Pavilion, with their many memories, were reduced to rubble. The carousel was saved by a constant stream of water over its roof. Before the smoke had cleared, Bob vowed to rebuild a new and better park, which was the beginning of Lagoon Park as it is today.

But while Freed stayed closely associated with Lagoon through the disastrous fire, today’s Lagoon and the ambition to rebuild it was notably his brother Bob’s.

Freed eventually returned to Lagoon in 1970 and dedicated himself to the park. But just when the park was really thriving, Bob fell ill with cancer and passed away. “Emotions were extremely high when Bob died,” Freed says. “We were always together. His friends were my friends. I had the greatest love for him that any brother could have, and I missed him desperately. Suddenly, I found myself without him when the park was growing.”

Robinson, Bob Freed’s brother-in-law, says Freed visited Bob every day while he was dying. “What sets Freed apart is his compassion and caring during unhappy moments,” Robinson says. After his brother died, Freed describes himself as “just plodding along” as president of Lagoon, but the park was staffed with people who truly cared about the it, he says.

Pioneer Village
With a great love for antiques and Utah history, Freed immediately carried out some of the ideas he had discussed with his late brother, including the creation of a 15-acre Pioneer Village in 1976, the biggest expansion in Lagoon’s history. “The sons of Utah Pioneers had a Pioneer Village and it was in the south part of Salt Lake City, but many of the things in Pioneer Village were just awful,” he says.

They moved Pioneer Village one brick and one board at a time from southern Salt Lake City to a plot on the park’s northern edge. Freed filled the 42 historic buildings with authentic antiques, bordered it with a steam engine track, hired gunslingers to perform stunt shows on its main street, and installed a new log flume. “It took us two years and a little more than $2 million to do all that,” he says. “And I have to tell you, $2 million was a hell of a lot of money.”

Attendance at Lagoon increased 25 percent the first year Pioneer Village opened. “That gave us a jump-start,” Freed says. The better news was that Lagoon was able to maintain that 25 percent gain and add to it as the park added new rides, entertainment, and picnic terraces.

Freed credits Pioneer Village with making Lagoon a rite of passage for every school child in Utah and many more in Idaho, Wyoming, and Nevada. “Having Pioneer Village—that educational component—is extremely important to getting school groups. It really educated young kids about our history and Lagoon.”

“He just put blood, sweat, and tears into Pioneer Village,” Robinson says. “He wanted it to be a living museum. I truly admire what he did.”

Freed’s other two loves are making guests feel welcome and live entertainment. To ensure the best guest experience possible, Freed walks the park every day. “My first memory is my dad walking the midway in plaid pants,” Kristen recalls.

Dave says that Freed is always checking for cleanliness, visiting the gardens, standing in ride lines, and doing other things that directly impact the guest experience. Because of his deep commitment, there are few things that will keep Freed from his daily walks. “One time he walked 100 yards, fell, and broke his elbow. But he got up, made his rounds, and then went to the doctor.”

Freed fielded a complaint from a guest while on his daily rounds one day. A woman approached him when he came into the office, and she had a major bone to pick. “She told me, ‘Peter Freed is a personal friend of mine, and I want something done about this.’ I didn’t tell her that I was Peter Freed,” he says.

It’s this same care for other people’s feelings that prompts Freed to respond to every complaint personally. As the executive of guest services, Kristen knows the impact Freed has on guests. “He writes every single person who complains,” she says. “It makes a huge impact for the guests.”

Let the Show Begin
One of Freed’s priorities at Lagoon was to revive live entertainment, one of his passions.As kids, Freed and Bob built a stage in their basement and put on shows for their family and neighbors. Freed actually met Christie in a play before World War II. His love for theater and shows grew over the years on his annual trips to Broadway. Lagoon built a Victorian Opera House in 1968, and, while he still hadn’t come back to Lagoon full-time, Freed was involved in the construction and the first productions to play on its stage. The Opera House pioneered the summer theater program in Utah as it presented such shows as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and other Broadway hits.

Until 1982, Lagoon’s entertainment was limited to the occasional concert and a marching band that mostly performed for large corporate picnics. “We never had live entertainment at the park,” Freed says, “so we tried to get a high school drama teacher to put on a show. It was awful.”From these humble beginnings, Lagoon has developed a respected

entertainment department. “We get performers from Nashville, Seattle, and other places,” Freed says. “The shows are much more polished and professional than they ever were before and are much better attended.”

Today, Freed’s love for entertainment is on display daily in The Show Royale musical revue at Lagoon’s 1,000-seat outdoor amphitheater, Pioneer Village’s The Road To Ol’ El Paso, and several other live shows. Freed can often be found at the theaters. He always stands, tall and thin with a full head of gray hair and a gentle smile, against the rail behind the last row of seats. “I love to go to the shows over and over again and see how much people like them,” he says.

The Never-Ending Story
At 82, Freed has no intention of retiring. “None of my brothers ever retired. David just died at 92 and he went to the office every day,” Freed says.

The other certainty, despite the occasional rumors of a sale to Six Flags, is that the Freed family will continue to lead the park. “I would have to say there’s nothing great about growing old. But one of the nicest things that has happened to me is that a number of my kids wanted to come out here and work,” he says.

Freed has six children and four them (Dave, Howard, Kristen, and Jennifer) work closely with him at Lagoon. With six grandchildren between the ages of nine and 17, there is already another generation starting to work at Lagoon as ticket takers, and maybe one day they will continue the legacy. “I see my kids every day and we really love working together.”

Freed still has plans for growth at Lagoon, including a vision of a huge indoor theater for live entertainment. “We’ve talked about a legacy for my brother Bob. I’m just dying to do a
theater and name it for him.”